Wouldn’t it be nice if one Saturday, you wake up and your kids say to you, “Mom, can we do chores today?” Then  as you sit happily sipping coffee and reading the newspaper your kids clean their rooms whistling while they work.  Even the bathrooms and mud hall get cleaned! This  obviously is a scene from a fantasy movie. It will never  happen in your home or mine.

It must be one of the most universally dreadful of all parenting jobs to try to get your kids to do chores. You  dread it. Kids resist and resent it. And after hours of pushing the issue, you end up doing most of it yourself.  There must be an easier way!

Well, there isn’t. (I should end the article here,  but I’ll add a few tips.) Children do need chores. They need to accept some responsibility for maintaining your home. Chores should be age appropriate for your children and should increase with age. Certainly write them down and post them on your ever expanding refrigerator billboard. But those are the basics we all know.

The biggest secret to getting chores done is that kids need us to do things for them. That gives us leverage to  have them do things for us. So, to get chores done, try these suggestions.

On chore day, stop serving your kids until the jobs are done. Respond to no requests, demands or inquiries. Stick to this. Keep on them about their chores but use  your presence rather then your voice. Accept less then perfect performance at the beginning but expect improvement over time. Teach them what you expect. Be persistent about having chores and getting them done. They will never like it. They will always grumble. Don’t grumble back.  Remember they are very uncomfortable with your silence.

If you can distance yourself from their grumbling,  persist in the chore demand, resist any of their requests  and pester them with your presence instead of your words, you might get a chore or two out of those lazy leeches you  call your children! If not, send them to my house and I’ll put them to work.